Should Nucifora start centrally planning?

One of the key roles that David Nucifora seems to have is responsibility for trying to ensure that there is more movement of players between provinces. I was wondering how far he might take this, will it be hints and suggestions to players and coaches that so and so should move here and someone else will move in the opposite direction to compensate it?
Personally, if he was to go down that line I would prefer him to do it officially and try and establish a system of identifying, in conjunction with Schmidt, the top four Irish players in each position and trying to ensure that they play at different provinces. I know that this could mean some provinces (leinster) producing and losing a lot of players, but surely it is best for Ireland that our top players get the maximum available game time

So for me it would look a bit like this:

	Leinster	Ulster	Munster	Connacht
Loosehead	C Healy	C Black	D Kilcoyne	J McGrath
Hooker	S Cronin	R Best	D Varley	R Strauss
Tighthead	M Ross	D Fitzpatrick	S Archer	M Moore
Secondrow	D Toner	D Tuohy	P O'Connell
Secondrow	M McCarthy	I Henderson	D Ryan
Blindside	S O'Brien	S Ferris	P O'Mahony	R Ruddock
Openside	S Jennings	C Henry	T O'Donnell	J Murphy
Number 8	J Heaslip	R Wilson	J Coughlan	R Copeland
Scrum-half	E Reddan	I Boss	C Murray	K Marmion
Out-half	J Sexton	P Jackson	I Keatley	I Madigan
Wing	D Kearney	A Trimble	S Zebo	C Gilroy
Inside Centre	G D'Arcy	L Marshall	J Downey	S Olding
Outside Centre	L Fitzgerald	J Payne	D Cave	R Henshaw
Wing	F McFadden	T Bowe	K Earls	F Carr
Fullback	R Kearney	R Andrew	F Jones	G Duffy

If we saw those players all getting starting berths each week surely Irish rugby would be better off for it long term?

Basically the plan is to stop young players sitting on their arse for years while they wait for an opportunity to break into the first team. They'll be encouraged to move around and get them playing at a younger age.

Yeah, the problem is we're competing with teams that don't have that and can sign players from anywhere around the world. Ulster are trying to get to a place where we can compete with Toulon and Clermont et al. Those teams have two quality players in every position- we work incredibly hard to generate that depth in positions like wing and centre with two quality Irish player and those players are then taken away from us?

What'll happen is there will be injuries and we'll be sitting watching our season slide into mediocrity because we don't have the depth, because our great players we've developed have been run out of town by the IRFU.

Basically I think it just damages provincial rugby too much and that is very, very unwise. Have a think and imagine what interest in Irish Rugby would have looked like between 2007 and 2013 if we didn't have Munster and Leinster being so successful. The national side would not have kept the interest in the sport as a whole because they were having a bad patch and if it wasn't for provincial success a lot of blow-in fans would have blown right back out and we'd be in all sorts of problems. The national team should aspire to winning trophies and being successful but we'll never dominate and we need strong provincial sides to carry the sport in the years when we don't have success, and there will always be periods when the national team isn't successful.

What the IRFU needs to do is design a structure where both the provinces and the national team can be successful. If they allowed the provinces to be run the way English and French clubs are with regards to the transfer policy that would undermine the national team. But this undermines the provinces, without any shadow of a doubt. This puts all our eggs in one basket. If all unions ran the game like we did, this might be feasible. But it's not feasible to take away the depth you need to be successful in European rugby and still keep up with the big English and French teams, it really isn't, and if our provincial sides stop being successful and start being also rans and failures then Irish Rugby is going to lose a lot more than it gains in terms of revenue, in terms of public support, in terms of interest.

Besides as an Ulster fan let me tell you if they were responsible for moving two massive talents like Gilroy and Olding out of Ulster, my reaction would not be to go and buy tickets for the national side. I would boycott the national side if they did that because it just feels as if my province is being used as a guinea pig for the national side. So why am I paying for a season ticket then? To see us develop players to the point where they are international standard and we are on the verge of a breakthrough to being successful, only for our own Union to step in and push us back towards square one? The Six Nations may be more important than the Pro12 but I spend a lot of money going to those games and they mean a lot to me. The whole system is currently geared towards the national team, if the balance is pushed even more towards the national team I just feel like thats a slap in the face for the fans who follow the provinces.

Having up and coming players move provinces to get game time is a good idea when they are blocked by non IQ options but the competition between Luke Marshall and Stuart Olding will only make them both better players. If the IRFU does have to step in and move players around, I strongly believe they should only do it if they can get a player of similar quality to move to the province in exchange. For instance, Olding moving to Connacht might be a catalyst for Henshaw to move to Ulster. Or Madigan is swapped for Henshaw between Leinster and Connacht. Maybe Jared Payne moves to Munster who need an outside centre, but Simon Zebo comes in to Ulster to play fullback in exchange etc. etc.

They should definitely not do what you are suggesting which is very unbalanced and a recipe for alienating fans and damaging Irish Rugby.

I see what you're saying Notch, however, what I can glean from the coverage of Nucifora's role is that he will be trying to encourage players to move around but in the absence of a formal policy (maybe one will come?). If that were the case how would ulster be any better off? We both know very well that Ulster have had an impossibly difficult time trying to persuade players to come North.

Obviously, as you point out, having quality back up players has underpinned the provinces successes. This system doesn't necessarily put paid to having that depth. 

Firstly, think of the Irish qualified players that are not on that list (Steenson, JJ, Humphreys at 10 alone). You could easily expand that list to include back up squad players who, as in the case of the three aforementioned, would easily be H-Cup bench quality. 

Secondly, if you prioritised having Irish starters across the four provinces you remove the marquee players. not withstanding the incredibly important influence of Pienaar, Muller, Elsom, Botha, Contepomi etc, aside from 2nd row and fullback there are pretty good first choice options across the board. Plus, by not having the marquee players you could have, say, a Ludik and a Stander for the price of a Pienaar. There's your depth right there. And yes, we will presumably always need one or two out and out world class foreigners, but definitely not as many as we have right now.

Obviously provincial loyalties will mean people would be upset with such a system, I just don't accept that an opaque system of encouragement and cajoling is any better.

I definitely does compromise having that depth. There's no way Leinster could realistically replace that front row you have them losing without signing more foreign players. Even Leinster don't have that depth. So if Toulon lose their tight head for the season, they sign another and are right there at the end of the season. If Mike Ross goes down the man they have groomed to replace him isn't there. Thats massive. We're already seeing a reduction in both marquee foreign players and non-marquee foreign players anyway so this wouldn't affect that.

I'm massively opposed to whats happening now in the absence of a formal policy because its just going to damage us more than it benefits us, but this is even worse.

I just hugely disagree with the idea that the IRFU should ever take part in a deal that will move a player away from the province that developed them if they don't want to let him go and he's under contract, for any reason. I disagree with that happening in an opaque way now or in a systemised way in the future. But if it has to happen, then the IRFU needs to make it fair and balanced where the province gains as much as they lose.

This is NOT fair and balanced. I'm sorry, what you are suggesting would be a disaster for Irish Rugby. There is no way I could ever, ever support a system like this. Provinces would be punished for developing talent. In this reality Ulster and Leinster are punished for producing the better players.

If a province produces better players they should be rewarded by getting the benefit of those players. Let me tell you, this would just be such a massive slap in the face for people who follow their provinces week in and week out it could only damage Irish Rugby. Any kind of draft system or what have you is going to backfire on the IRFU in a big way and if this is what Nucifora has been brought in for then I'm seriously worried about the future of the game here.

Notch wrote:
I'm massively opposed to whats happening now in the absence of a formal policy because its just going to damage us more than it benefits us, but this is even worse.

Even worse than what though? You can't compare the a clear proposal with, well, nothing!

I hope what he does is to move 3rd choice players around.  I think the problems in the past has been I'm not getting a game for my team lets go to England.

I think that in todays setup we have to have two in each position.  22 Rabo plus 6-8 Euro is enough for both players to get games.  It is the third choice where we run into problems where some have more than others.

Looking at Stringer at Bath and seeing what he could have done for Connacht helping an up and coming player improve we have lost out.

Until Ireland make being first choice for your team a requirement for national selection we will have players sitting on benches for 4 years doing nothing rather than get gametime.
Copeland would not be the player he is if he had not been playing the last 2 years.

Should we have more A games outside of the B&I Cup to look at 3rd and 4th choice players here.

Stringer was probably being offered a lot more money at bath than he would have got a t Connacht. We can't have 30 something's holding out for a big pay day because they might help develop youngsters or a young team.

We simply don't have the money for that

Standulstermen wrote:Stringer was probably being offered a lot more money at bath than he would have got a t Connacht. We can't have 30 something's holding out for a big pay day because they might help develop youngsters or a young team.

We simply don't have the money for that

He went on loan to Sarries because he was 3rd choice at Munster and then to Newcastle his last year. He could have easily gone to Connacht that year.

There are very few movers north/south/east/west without taking a gap year/s to the UK